Showing 624 articles
Indian Classical Music – A Bridge to The Divine
Author: Dipti SanzgiriFebruary 7, 2017
Om. The first sound of creation as per the Hindu tradition. That sound with which all ancient vedic prayers start and end, as if emulating the sacred process of creation through sound. The classical tradition of music in India therefore, has traditionally been treated as a sacred means to interact with the creative principle of [...]
What is folklore?
Author: Pinar AkhanJanuary 27, 2017
What do you think of when you hear the word “folklore”? Stories, myths, festivals, songs, dance, masks, riddles, crafts, beliefs… All of these and much more are comprised in the term folklore. The word – literally meaning “the learning of the people” (Folk-Lore) – was coined by William J. Thoms in 1846. It refers to [...]
Utopia at The Bauhaus
Author: Siobhan FarrarJanuary 27, 2017
Four hundred years ago in 1516, Thomas More wrote his extraordinary piece of work ‘Utopia’. More derived the word Utopia from the Greek words ‘ou’ & ‘topos’, which together translate as ‘nowhere’. Rather than being a blueprint for a fantasy future society, Utopia is aimed much more at our faculty of imagination – it encourages [...]
Keep calm and get going!
Author: Sabine LeitnerJanuary 26, 2017
What a year 2016 has been. Even more unpredictable than 2015 (who would have predicted the mass migration that saw almost a million migrants enter Germany alone?) and perhaps a sign that 2017 will follow in the same vein. It has been variously called “momentous”, “the year of revolution”, “the year in which Westerners lost [...]
A Revolution for the Future
Author: Pierre PoulainDecember 26, 2016
Do we need to learn from History? On December 3rd I was sitting in front of my laptop, wondering what might be the theme of this article. I didn’t want to write about something that I didn’t believe was important or significant. Usually I let my intuition identify a subject, but on that day, this [...]
Hilma Af Klint: Painting the Unseen
Author: Siobhan FarrarNovember 12, 2016
Earlier this year the Serpentine Gallery held an exhibition described by the Telegraph as “a sense of unfathomable mystery”. Hilma Af Klint, a Swedish born female painter who began producing work in the early 1900s, is beginning to be recognised as the first artist ever to have produced a piece of ‘abstract art’. Prior to [...]
The need for a vision of the future
Author: Sabine LeitnerNovember 12, 2016
I recently read a review of the book “Eden 2.0: Climate Change and the Search for a 21st Century Myth”. The central argument of the book is that humanity needs to find – rather fast – a myth that would enable us to transcend our differences and inspire us to follow a radically new course. [...]
John Dee – Magician, Mathematician and Angelologist
Author: Julian ScottNovember 12, 2016
Earlier this year a remarkable exhibition was shown at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, London: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee. Born in 1527, of Welsh ancestry, John Dee was one of Tudor England’s most extraordinary and enigmatic figures. A brilliant mathematician, he was offered the chair of mathematics [...]
Harmony and the Art of True Friendship
Author: Ran KremerSeptember 24, 2016
A wise man once said, ‘One close real friend is better than ten distant and estranged brothers.’ Does true and unconditioned comradeship still exists in the 21st century? How different is real friendship from having casual friends or from “Facebook Friends”? Can this kind of lasting and profound friendship be found? How and where? There [...]
Down the Rabbit Hole: Tasneem Zakaria Mehta on Preservation of Heritage
Author: Manjula NanavatiSeptember 24, 2016
In five years Tasneem Zakaria Mehta revitalized a decayed and dying museum, transforming it into a vital and accessible cultural focal point for Mumbai. As vice-chairman of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and Honorary Director of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad (BDL) Museum, Tasneem spearheaded the exhaustive research and the [...]
Living in Interbeing
Author: Sangeeta IyerSeptember 23, 2016
In the journey of life as we grow in consciousness, we start to become aware of a certain truth that dawns on us as gently and as lovingly as the first rays of the rising Sun – that we are all ‘One Life’, deeply connected to each other in mystic and mysterious ways. James Cameron’s [...]
Living Together in Harmony
Author: Delia Steinberg GuzmánSeptember 23, 2016
Those who are incapable of living in harmony with others are also incapable of living in harmony with themselves. What they can’t achieve when working with others they won’t achieve for themselves either. – Delia Steinberg Guzmán Human unity It is our conviction that the human soul is essentially one, so we cannot establish distinctions based [...]